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Just courius,while i learned to pack standing.
Any oppinions about good/bad things on how to pack

Well, I'm kneeling, but my canopy is laying on the ground.

A good floow-up question would be "clamps" or "no clamps"? I personally use clamps. Makes life a heckuva lot easier.

do you have any pics of thouse clamps?I have some here,but they aint good for the canopi.
It seems that i have to order them from US while all thouse i know/have asked only have found them in US.Any price?

Yo I got a set of 8 clamps for $10 USD at Home Depot about a month ago. Still don't use them, old habits die hard I guess.

So you can pack back to back
ill get to you by PM

I pro pack without clamps. Saying that...... i have now just started using clamps on the last stages so I end up with some control whilst pulling into the container and folding in. No doubt I will end up using clamps throughout my packing!!

I have to admit when I see people flat pack it does look cleaner and more structured - but all in all we are doing the same thing.


Be Safe........ Be still developing "my" pack job

M

i agree
Thats my Q... is it the same?When i started to propack my parachute(skydive)i were told that it would prevent ofheadding.while the chute lays on the ground it have a offheadding at 90degrees,untill you start packing it.
But if you want THE PERFECT packjob to your ultralow jump,what do you the prefere?

the one that worksbut which one would then be the best?

Well, I've heard of people packing their BASE canopies like a skydiving canopy.

BASE pack jobs, with a couple of minor exceptions, are pretty much the same as a reserve pack job.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the main reason to lay down the canopy is for control & neatness.

In my case, I lay the canopy down on it's side, then go through each cell, one by one, to make sure they're laying nice & flat and in line with each other. Then I pull at the top for each line set and clamp them when I get them aligned right. Then I rotate the job to sit on the nose and flake out the folds between line groups.

This gets me going and gets a lot of the flakingout of the way early.

Of course everyone develops their own style over time, but that's what I do with what seems to be good results.

I use a flat pro-stack for 90% of my jumps.

I really think it's just a matter of personal preference (and some packing space considerations in the field).

If you need clamps, I could easily buy a set and ship them over to you.

I currently use the standing pro pack method. Then lay it on the ground and finish detailing it out. I use clamps if I have them available at the time.

Have tried to flat pack, but I am more comfortable with the standing pack job.

I pretty much follow CR's video.

Rod

I flat pack on the ground both slider up and slider down, with 4 clamps. I know a few folks who can pro pack a BASE rig standing up faster than I can on the ground (slider up), but not many - when really current with packing (and with enough space to work), I can pack a slider up rig in about 7 minutes. Not pretty to watch, but no critical steps missed.

The faster one packs - with no change in overall quality and care of packing - the more jumps one gets. Truly sloppy packing is dangerous - there are a number of confirmed BASE fatalities resulting from packing errors - but a quicker clean packjob is really just more time to jump.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

And this brings up an issue I've been grappling with lately... just how "clean", from a point of diminishing returns perspective, should a pack job be?

Most of my time is spent cleaning the inside of the pack job and lining up the line sets. I wind up making several passes at it before I pull the tail over.

I can't help but wonder if I may be overkilling it a little, but at least I don't have gear-fear issues when it comes time to jump. Maybe when I get a few more jumps under my belt I'll start experimenting with not making quite so many passes.

Interesting questions, and something I've been thinking on and discussing with others quite a bit of late. In Malaysia, I made 30 slider-up jumps in 8 days which equates to alot of packing. About half were from Petronas, with real object-strike potential. The other half were from KL Tower, very overhung.

I experimented with things like flaking the bottomskin or not, general tidying of the cells prior to clamping to put in the container, being really careful the risers are perfectly equal with line tension, etc. Plus I did some rather fast (7 minute) pack jobs.

Based on this and past experience, here is what I personally think - and what I do with own packing and jumping. I believe that:

- much of the general "tidying" of packjobs that we do when turning a 20 minute job into a 40 minute job doesn't really help much on slider-up jumps. Symmetry is important, yes, but essentially if the canopy is "symmetrically messy" I believe off-heading probability goes up little, if at all.

- making sure lines are tight and not tangled, and making sure the slider is cleanly packed, free of obstructions, stabilizers are not clogging the slider, etc. is very, VERY important. People die and get horribly injured from tension knots and sliders stuck for other reasons. I've had a good friend come very close to going in with a slider hang-up, and know of many other similar cases. Sliders are super dangerous - take the extra time to make sure it is clear, clear, clear.

- Nose symmetry in the packjob is somewhat important. As one works backwards in the canopy, general cleanliness of the flaking is progressively less important. Tail flaking procedures are all but irrelevant. Don't waste time fussing with the tail, save to make sure it covers the packjob cleanly before putting into the container.

- procedures for rolling, micro-reefing, or opening the nose do have an effect on opening speed slider-up. Experiment and come up with systems for nose packing that work for you, and make sense to you.

- the more tricks you use to slow a slider-up deployment, the higher the chance of snivel (by definition) and off-heading/line twists. Others may well disagree with me on this. However, I lost a dear friend to a snivelly opening this year and I'd much rather have a fucking spanker of an opening than have a snivel that injures me for life. Of course, if we are talking about terminal openings far from objects, that's a different issue; I don't do much jumping like that - more of my stuff is "survival jumping" at heart.

- procedures for settling the lines into the tailpocket are very important. Do this wrong - or sloppy - and tension knot probability goes up exponentially. Learn to settle those lines in fast but clean. Start the loops bigger than you end them, so that the loops at the bottom of the lines are too small to get all the way around the loops at the top, decreasing risk of entanglement (thanks to DW for this trick).

- securely closing the tail pocket is really important - do this sloppy and you might have line dump. line dump can turn into tension knots, i.e. death.

So basically this is my theory. I believe that it is essential to focus on those areas of a packjob that are really, really essential - and NEVER NEVER to fuck those up. Not once.

But much of the rest of the fussing and flapping over making the cells look "clean" is essentially worthless in getting better openings. Maybe not worthless entirely, but very much subject to diminishing returns. If I take an extra 5 minutes on a 15 minute pack job, I get a cleaner pack - however, if I take an extra 5 minutes on a 30 minute packjob, I'm essentially wasting my time.

Packing is a really personal thing; I know several very experienced jumpers who swear they'd never (never never) jump my "sloppy saturday night massacre packjobs" as one Aussie called them. However, I believe that I spend as much or more time when packing worrying about the really essential items as anyone else does. . . I just don't waste lots of time making the packing look all neat and tidy.

Slider down packing, I think, has some different dynamics at play in some areas - but I don't know many folks jumping slider down that really need to know how to pack a bit quicker while being safe. Mostly, when we are on a BASE rampage it is on legal, slider-up objects (Europe, South Africa, Malaysia, TF which many folks jump slider-up) and it is here where learning how to safely turn 45 minute pack jobs into 15 minute ones can essentially triple jumping volume.

I also think packing is much about a "flow" one develops from hands-on experience. I've learned lots of packing tricks from simply watching others pack, and thinking about how their techniques differ from others. I've also had super teachers to show me what they've learned in years of thinking about packing which I think is a blessing.

Standard caveats apply: don't try this at home; your mileage may vary; some assembly required; professional stunt jumpers pictured; do as I say not as I do; etc.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

Hi All
Tom,i have ordered a pair,but thanks(ill soon need themEaster i think)


But how long do you use on a slider down?Sure im newbie and sure i jump slider down(29 of my 30 jumps).I normaly use 30-45 minutes on a packjob,and have repacked just becours i meant it looked sloppy...

Just a Q: if slider up jumps easy could make offheading,wouldnt it then bee there you used that ekstra time?


Thanks to both of you,ill use that next time

I believe that packing (more specifically, flaking of cells) has less of an impact on opening performance silder up than slider down. I do not have data to back this up. . . just a personal belief. Since the slider holds the unfolding canopy together, I think subtle variation in side-to-side symmetry are less likely to cause a true off-heading than without a slider to slow deployment and pressurization. Thus, I believe that body position is relatively more important as a factor in causing slider-up off headings than it is, ceteris paribus, slider down. In either case, it is super important - just that with the slider up, there is essentially one less variable (minor packing asymmetries) that really had any impact, and thus the total proportion of off headings caused by body position must by definition go up.

Therefore, I spend less time fussing with the overall neatness of slider up packjobs (generally) than slider down ones. For slider down, I'd say my average is about 20 minutes - I carefully flake the bottom skin always, whereas I've come to believe that this has little impact slider up.

Also, more of the objects I jump slider down are "survival" jumps in the sense of being quite low and unforgiving of off-headings. On average, I feel I'm further from objects silder up - either due to simply more time to arc away during freefall, or due to some tracking separation. Slider down, especially with a standing exit and doubly so with PCA/static line jumps, the object is CLOSE and I worry more about anything more than a 100 degree off-heading.

Not sure if this makes sense to others. . . just my own personal packing cosmology. Also note that I have NOT run these theories by more experienced and more technically knowledgeable jumpers than myself, so take with a handful of salt. When the big boys weigh in and agree, I'll think my ideas are more than just idle speculation.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

The low jumps you mention are they thouse sub 200ft?
I know we all have our limit,and in that way our own way to diskribe LOW jumps.And how to preform them.
What i mean is that DW would probaly mean under 200ft while i mean under 300ft.But this also effect our pack job,rigth?
I saw some jumps ,that DW preformed(Beyond the extrem),and im impressed of his ONheadings..I sure would like to see him operate for real,both on ground and in the air.

Personally, I consider anything below 230 feet or so to be "low" for freefall, and below 180 to be low for static line. Of course, this depends on landing area, winds, etc.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

 

I'm beginning to learn why you think that. And I'm beginning to agree with that as well. 250 ish was the lowest freefall so far, and it made enough sense to want to do it again.

Tim

This bears repeating:


Never let someone tell you that you are packing too slow, or too carefully.

Never let people hurry you.

Never feel insecure or uncool about packing too slow.

If you aren't comfortable with your pack job, then, by definition, it is a bad pack job.

Hi D-Dog!

Sounds you had a great time in Malaysia -- that's awesome!

Could you expand on the following? I'm having a difficult time picturing what you're saying.Start the loops bigger than you end them, so that the loops at the bottom of the lines are too small to get all the way around the loops at the top, decreasing risk of entanglement (thanks to DW for this trick).

I've seen you both pack. You both do the same thing (the standard CR method used by 90% of jumpers) with the lines. I think you might just be having some communication confusion.

 


Your packjob should be as clean as it needs to be to make you feel comfortable on the exit point it was packed for.

This will vary from person to person. Personally, I take more than a few extra steps if only because it helps me remember my packjob later on. On just about every hike, climb, or other pre jump activity, I go over my whole packjob in my head, making sure I didn't forget something nasty in the mix (sometimes when you're riding an elevator to the top of a building though, you just don't have the time for this!!!!).

With that said, there are really 3 or 4 things you MUST do for your BASE canopy to open quick and on heading: the rest is detail. Detailed packjobs are good. They make sure that your interaction with the object is not more intimate than you would like. Rushed packjobs can be bad. Besides, if you stay current with your jumping/packing, your packjob will speed up a ton.

Learn what your canopy looks/feels like. Hang it up, inspect it. Climb your ass into each cell and see what goes where, and why. How many crossports does your canopy have? Do you know the difference between linegroups? Do you know where wear is most likeley to occur and why--AND do you know how worn YOUR canopy is? Know your gear.

Use whatever tools you need. Check them in, Check them out.

Take as much time as you need. There's always someone who can pack faster--don;t let their impatience alter your packjob.

Symmetry, symmetry, symmetry. How it goes in is the way it comes out.

And most importantly--your momma.